Operations Management Assessment

Jurys INN Southampton

Reception Improvements

Hand in date:

14. 01. 2019

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Table of content
1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 The purpose and scope of the report 1

1.2 The aims & objectives of the report 1

2 THE BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT 1

2.1 The business 1

2.2 The sector 1

2.3 Context for the issue and the challenges facing the company 2

3 THE ISSUE 2

3.1 Business and sector research related to the issue 2

3.2 Academic research related to the issue 3

4 ANALYSIS AND IMPLICATIONS 4

4.1 Critical analysis of the issue using the research 4

4.2 Implications for the business and sector 7

5 OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 9

6 CONCLUSIONS 10

7 REFERENCES 11

8 APPENDICES 12
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1 Introduction
1.1 The purpose and scope of the report
The purpose of this report is about the improvement of the reception process. The
tourism industry faces two themes we covered in our operations management unit.
These are service and quality. Due to lots of research on TripAdvisor and
booking.com it could be identified an issue concerning the reception department.
In our paper the Jurys Inn Southampton hotel perfectly fits to describe these
process. The hotel accommodation starts and ends at the reception, therefore it is
necessary to have enough and friendly staff for this department. Of course
friendliness should be basic prerequisite for all departments in the hotel business.

1.2 The aims & objectives of the report

The Jurys Inn Southampton faces a lack in the reception process. TripAdvisor
reviews say that phone calls and mails aren`t answered in time and the waiting
time at the check-in and check-out are too long. The aim of this report is to
describe the reception process, develop improvements and elaborate suggestions.
This point leads us to our theme of the report. The main goal of this report is the
improvement of the reception process and to evaluate how many staff are needed
to guarantee satisfied guests. To figure out the ideal and needed number of staff
for the reception department, we use a common formula. The formula and all
relevant numbers are elements of the main part.

2 The Background and Context

2.1 The business
The Jurys Inn Southampton hotel which we use for our case study is a 4* hotel and
situated right at the heart of the city. With a capacity of 270 rooms, the hotel
provide opportunities for business trips, family getaways and weekend trips. One
part of the principal activities are meetings and events, therefore the hotel offers
nine fully equipped meeting rooms (Jurys Hotel Management (UK) Limited 2019).

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2.2 The sector
The tourism sector as we know, is currently a considerable phenomenon of the
twentieth century. Historians point out, that the onset of mass tourism was in
England. It leads back to the industrial revolution with the ascent of the middle
class and the affordable transportation. Tourism industry increased in two ways
economic and social importance. Over years and in most industrialised nations
services are the economic sector with the fastest growing (Theobald 1998, p.3).

The tourism sector nowadays has an important impact on the UK economy each
year. The country recorded 41.7m visits of oversea tourists in 2018 and made a
total contribution of about 213.8bn GBP to the UK gross domestic product (Statista
2019a). According to these numbers, we can see the importance of the theme and
the hotel industry.

2.3 Context for the issue and the challenges facing the company
Especially the tourism industry faces a real challenge. This obtains due to the fact,
that tourism products make a difference from manufactured products and have
unique characteristics (Jones and Haven-Tag 2005, p.3).

In recent years, service quality in the tourism industry has established significant
attention. The importance of service quality has made customers further
ambitious. In these days the relationship between service quality and volatiles like
costs, productivity, prices and customer fulfilment are the core of current online
research.

By analysing service quality we have to look on both sides of the medal, the
perceptions of employee and customer must be observed. Service quality
expectations are satisfied, if both groups share the same values. In case of existing
gaps between the customer’s expectations and perceptions, process development
and trainings need to take place (Jones and Haven-Tag 2005, pp.5; Kandampully,
Mok and Sparks 2009, pp.51).

This fact leads to the theme of this report. According to research on TripAdvisor
and booking.com customers are dissatisfied with the waiting times for check-in and
check-out. Furthermore, the friendliness of the staff is a problem of the selected
business.

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3 The Issue
3.1 Business and sector research related to the issue
To identify the issue, intensive researches on TripAdvisor and booking.com were
conducted.

First we start with the platform Booking.com, which was founded 1996 in
Amsterdam. The onset of the global leader was a small start-up company in the
Netherlands. Today Booking.com is one of the largest travel companies, with
17,000 employees around the world. The business operates in 70 countries and has
about 198 offices worldwide. Booking.com is available in over forty languages and
customers can easily join via website or a mobile app. Every day over 1,550,000
accommodation nights are appropriated. The customer experience reviews have an
important impact on consumers decisions. Nowadays it is significant, that satisfied
clients recommend our hotel business (Booking.com 2019).

TripAdvisor is the second online platform we want to mention. The company is the
largest travel site in the world and covering 8 million accommodations,
restaurants, hotels and airlines. The frontrunner delivers a selection of over 702
million reviews and opinions of travel experiences worldwide. The website matches
prices from more than 200 hotel booking sites. As a result, travellers can find the
cheapest price on the hotel for the selected region. Afterwards, clients can get
information about the proposed hotel and look at their reviews. By reading the
reviews and evaluations of the hotel, clients determine their decision (TripAdvisor
2019).

3.2 Academic research related to the issue

First we want to analyse the operations design. Within this progression, it is
important to make sure the performance of the process. Quality, speed,
dependability, flexibility, cost and sustainability should be part of the design of any
process (Slack, Brandon-Jones and Johnston 2016, p.185). In our case study we
applied the polar diagram on sample of Jurys Inn Southampton.

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 Speed
10

5
Cost Quality

Flexibility Dependability

Actual performance

In this process, we analyse the five performance objectives. At the point speed, we
looked at the reviews on TripAdvisor and booking.com. This points include the
check-in and check-out process times, how long our staff needs to respond a
reservation requirement of phone call. The reviews are shown in the appendices.

The point quality means the consideration of quality of staff and special tasks.
Dependability includes the points, availability of the service at the reception and if
guests become the booked room and special packages. Flexibility in our Jurys Inn
hotel is about the possibility and opportunity to extend a night and to book other
packages. The last point is about cost and means for example the overbooking
numbers, how to standardise the process and be as efficient as possible. Also to
calculate the right number of staff on the reception is an important point Slack,
Brandon-Jones and Johnston 2016, pp.404).

The next graphic shows the performance, the Jurys Inn hotel wants to achieve. As
we can see the speed and the quality are the most important improvements. These
two objectives are linked with the complains on TripAdvisor and booking.com.

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 Speed
10

5
Cost Quality

Flexibility Dependability

Actual performance Required performance

4  Analysis and Implications

4.1 Critical analysis of the issue using the research
By analysing the online reviews on the common platforms like TripAdvisor and
booking.com, we attempt to constitute the reception process. In the following
graphic we start with the customer request, continued with the check-in and stay-
over in our hotel and which ends with the check-out.
Preparation before Preparation before
Customer Request Check-In Stay-over Check-out Customer Request Check-In Stay-over Check-out
Check-in Check-in

Check the room Preparation of the Preparation of the Inform the Check the room Preparation of the Preparation of the Inform the
allocation arrivals list registration form housekeeping all ocation arrivals list registr ation form housekeeping

Following we constitute the four investigated reception steps more in detail. We

start with the customer request which we receive per mail, online over the booking
system or a personal dialog via telephone. First, the reception or reservation
service checks the availability of the rooms. If the hotel can offer rooms we have
the ensuing step. This means, the receptionist asks for their data, send the
reservation form, makes the room allocation, saves the guest data in the
reservation system, confirms the reservation and booking. Below you can see the
process in detail (Jagmohan 2008, pp.64).

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 Customer Request Check-In Stay-over Check-out

Yes
Save and store guest
Check availability Collect guest data Reservation form Room allocation
data in the system

No

Yes
Booking Confirmation of
Letter of refusal Advance payment?
confirmation Reservation

No
Yes

No

Letter of refusal Advance payment? Reminder

The second step in our reception process is the check-in of our guests. When clients
arrive they enter the lobby area, facing the reception. The receptionist will ask for
the right identity. Within the next stage, the clients have to sign the registration
form if needed they could add special requests. After this, they get their keys and
the concierge will bring them to their room. We can see all the process design
below.

Within the stay-over process, all receipts from the different departments would be
collected and booked from the reception. Also, the reception will check if special
requests are fulfilled (Hearst Newspapers LLC 2019).

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The last step in our reception process is the check-out. On the date of departure,
clients will come and return their keys. They show them all the original receipts
from the different departments if everything is ok, we can print the final receipt
and do the payment. If not, we have to figure out what is wrong. We have to
improve our quality and explain the guest the situation and why it happened
(OpenKey 2019).

4.2 Implications for the business and sector

We want to extend one step in the main process to improve our process design. To
avoid long check-in ques and wrong bookings, we want to complement the step
preparation before check-in. We can see this objective in the graphic below.
Subitems are the room allocation check, if the guest gets the requested room, the
preparation of the arrival list, the preparation of the registration forms and

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information flow with the housekeeping department, if rooms are available at
time.

Preparation before
Customer Request Check-In Stay-over Check-out
Check-in

Check the room Preparation of the Preparation of the Inform the

allocation arrivals list registration form housekeeping

All this steps help the Jurys Inn Hotel to improve the workflow and be prepared
when guests enter the lobby area. The preparation before check-in will assist to
react against bad online platform reviews.

The second issue we want to tackle in this report is about the needed number of
staff at the reception. To evaluate an approximate number, we use the common
little`s law calculation. It is the mathematical relationship between throughput
time = work-in-progress x cycle time.

The little’s law, measures the average number of things in a system. This number
gets calculate by the average rate at which products leave the system and the
average time each object occurs in the system. Another way to calculate the
average number of objects is to compare the number of products in a queue with
the number of objects entering the process with the average holding time (Slack,
Brandon-Jones and Johnston 2016, pp.201).

The queuing theory provides this topic and complements the improvement on the
reception. The queuing theory, also called waiting line theory is a mathematical
approach to forecast the behaviour of queuing systems (Slack, Brandon-Jones and
Johnston 2016, p.700).

The theory of the little’s law will help us to calculate the ideal number of staff,
but first we look at the average number of occupancy, arrivals, average check-in
times and length of overnight stays, provided by statista UK.

According to the platform statista, the United Kingdom hotel room occupancy rate
from 2016 is about 70% (Statista 2019b). When clients arrive at the Jurys Inn Hotel

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guests should not wait more than 12 minutes on average to get checked-in. Our
hotel disposes 270 rooms in total. If we take the total rooms 270 and calculate 70%
of them, we receive an annual average of 189 rooms. The normal length of
overnight stays are three days. The common check-in times are from 11am to 3pm
(Jurys Hotel Management (UK) Limited 2019a).

The following formula and description for the ideal number of staff calculation, is
from the book Operations Management (Slack, Brandon-Jones and Johnston 2016,
pp.394).

u √ 2( m+1 )−1
W q= t
m(1−u) e

ra (arrival rate) = 18 guest per hour

ta (average time between arrival) = 4 minutes
te (mean processing time) = 9 minutes = (100*9/60)= 0.15
re (processing rate) = 6.6 per hour
m (the proposed number of staff) = 3 or 4 members of staff?
u (utilisation) = arrival rate / (processing rate * members of staff)

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Calculation for 4 reception staff members:

u = 18/ (6.6*4) = 0.68

0.68 √2 ( 4+1 )−1
0.0578 hours∨3.468 minutes= ∗0.15
4( 1−0.68)

calculation for 3 reception staff members:

u = 18/ (6.6*3) = 0.909
0.909√ 2 (3 +1)−1
0.4615 hours∨27.69 minutes= ∗0.15
3(1−0.909)

Above we calculate the queuing theory for 3 or 4 reception staff members.

According to our theoretical calculation we recommend four staff members behind
the reception desk. With this number of staff the theoretical waiting time is about
3.468 minutes. If we reduce the staff to three members we can see a significant
increase to an average of about 27.69 minutes. The waiting time with three
members are to big and as we already mentioned at the beginning of this report,
the hotel journey starts and ends at the reception. If guests have to wait about half
an hour to check-in, or with special requests they are dissatisfied and don’t book
the hotel again. The same in case of online booking requests and phone calls, we
propose four receptionists. This calculation and the next chapter provide a basis to
have pleasant hotel clients.

5 Observations and Recommendations

The new process design will help the Jurys Inn Southampton to improve their
service quality. By preparing all check-in formalities before the clients arrive,
future clients will experience a professional welcome without long waiting times.
Furthermore, by calculating the right amount of staff, the hotel will have all the
necessary resources to guarantee the expected service quality.

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 Figure 1: HotelFriend App principal

Current trends also show, that technology also can help to improve the reception
process and presents an extra benefit to clients. Hotel apps like HotelFriend.com
enables mobile check-in and check-outs, show all the necessary information from
wellness offers to menus and activities. The system will encourage sales without
additional personal cost. The app can get integrated easily into the process of the
hotel without additional cost for a new hardware. Furthermore, the staff of the
reception can get easily in contact with the clients, to update information and
inspire the people for possible future overnight stays (Hotelfriend 2019).

6 Conclusions
A lack in the reception process, made the Jury Inn Hotel Southampton the perfect
example to demonstrate how a lack in the reception process can lead to negative
reviews on platforms like TripAdvisor and Booking.com. As mentioned at the
introduction of this report the overnight stay starts and ends at the reception,
therefore it is necessary to have enough and friendly staff in this department.
Redesigning the process and implementing small changes, like an accurate
preparation before the clients arrive, will lead to a substantial improvement,
without high costs of investment. Future clients will no longer experience long
check-in ques and wrong bookings. At the reception, a customer should not wait
longer than 12 minutes. The little’s law theory and calculation on the basis of the
queuing theory showed us, that the appropriate number of staff at the reception of

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the Jury Inn Hotel is four. A further innovation can be the implementation of a
hotel app, to provide people with all the necessary information already before the
arrival and especially during their stay. The app provides another opportunity to
accelerate the reception process and therefore a step closer to high end customer
service.

7 References
Booking.com, 2019. about Booking.com. [viewed 05 January 2019]
Available from: https://www.booking.com/content/about.en-gb.html?
label=gen173nr-
1FCAEoggI46AdIM1gEaDuIAQGYAQm4AQfIAQ3YAQHoAQH4AQuIAgGoAgM;sid=d
c424c3a929ed89fef5de2666cf6b6d8
Hearst Newspapers LLC, 2019. Chron - Standard Operation Procedures for Hotel
Front Offices. [viewed 05 January 2019]
Available from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/standard-operation-
procedures-hotel-front-offices-65577.html
Hotelfriend, 2019. Go digital, innovate your hotel. Interact with guests and
increase revenue with our App. [viewed 10 January 2019]
Available from: https://hotelfriend.com/hotel-mobile-app?
gclid=CjwKCAiA4OvhBRAjEiwAU2FoJa26u1Hjhxzq03JZ3xWBRwJD1C1xtOhUFq
WTjHGFTcnTfLvtA-dvmxoC0cEQAvD_BwE
Jagmohan, N., 2008. Hospitality Reception and Front Office. New Delhi: S. Chand
& Company PVT. LTD..
Jones, E. & Haven-Tang, C., 2005. Tourism SMEs, service quality and destination
competitiveness. Cardiff: Cabi Publishing.
Jurys Hotel Management (UK) Limited, 2019. Jurys Inn Southampton. [viewed 28
December 2018]
Available from: https://www.jurysinns.com/hotels/southampton
Kandampully, J., Mok, C., Sparks, B., 2009. Service Quality Management,
Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure. London: Routledge
OpenKey, 2019. 6 ways to improve your hotel front desk team performance.
[viewed 07 January 2019]

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 Available from: https://www.openkey.co/blog/6-ways-to-improve-your-
hotel-front-desk-team-performance
Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A. and Johnston, R., 2016. Operations Management.
London: Pearson.
Statista, 2019a. Travel and tourism in the United Kingdom. [viewed 07 January
2019]
Available from: https://www.statista.com/topics/3269/travel-and-tourism-
in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
Statista, 2019b. Annual occupancy rate of hotels in the United Kongdom (UK) from
2012 to 2017. [viewed 07 January 2019]
Available from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/473271/occupancy-
rate-hotels-uk/
Theobald, W. F., 1998. Global Tourism. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.
TripAdvisor, 2019. about TripAdvisor. [viewed 07 January 2019]
Available from: https://tripadvisor.mediaroom.com/uk-about-us

8 Appendices

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